Good Morning Vietnam

Good Morning Vietnam
by Paul McLellan on 08-03-2015 at 7:00 am

This morning I went to a presentation in Palo Alto about outsourcing in Vietnam. You have probably heard that Vietnam is the new China for manufacturing, as wages have increased in the Shenzhen area then companies like Foxconn have opened plants in Vietnam. But this meeting was mostly about services, software and design. In this… Read More


Silvaco 30 Years Ago

Silvaco 30 Years Ago
by Paul McLellan on 07-31-2015 at 7:00 am

It’s Silvaco’s 30 year anniversary. You may already know the dry official story of the early days:

  • Founded in 1984 by Dr Ivan Pesic
  • In 1984 the initial product, Utmost, quickly became the industry standard for parameter extraction, device characterization and modeling.
  • In 1985 Silvaco entered the SPICE circuit
Read More

Cadence 2015 Q2 Results

Cadence 2015 Q2 Results
by Paul McLellan on 07-29-2015 at 6:00 pm

Let’s start by getting the financial stuff out of the way. Revenue was $416 million; non-GAAP operating margin was 28%; non-GAAP EPS was $0.27; and operating cash flow was $122 million (up at lot, it was just $47M in Q1 and $69M in Q2 of 2014).

The thing that the financial types are most interested in are the changes to Cadence’s… Read More


The Antiportfolio

The Antiportfolio
by Paul McLellan on 07-29-2015 at 7:00 am

Last week Charlie Cheng of Kilopass wrote about venture capital for semiconductor. This reminded me of something amusing that I came across years ago.

See also VC For Semiconductor: Dead or Alive?

All VCs have a portfolio page and often a second exit page. The first shows the companies in which they currently hold investments and… Read More


Ultra-low Power IP for Wearables

Ultra-low Power IP for Wearables
by Paul McLellan on 07-28-2015 at 7:00 am

Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) in general are all about low power. Everyone must have read (or even experienced) the phenomenon of putting something like a Fitbit on and then after a short period leaving it in a drawer or putting it to recharge and forgetting about it for weeks. The longer devices can last the more likely… Read More


Synopsys’ Andreas Kuehlmann on Software Development

Synopsys’ Andreas Kuehlmann on Software Development
by Paul McLellan on 07-27-2015 at 7:00 am

Andreas Kuehlmann is the general manager of what is officially now known as the Software Integrity Group of Synopsys, what you might think of as Coverity although they have made some acquisitions too, so they now have a broader technology base. I sat down to talk to him last week.

He was brought up in Germany and came to the US in 1991 … Read More


FD-SOI: a Gentle Introduction

FD-SOI: a Gentle Introduction
by Paul McLellan on 07-24-2015 at 7:00 am

Over the last couple of weeks, FD-SOI has been in the news with GlobalFoundries announcement of a 22nm FD-SOI process that will run in the Dresden Fab. Also, earlier in the week I talked to Thomas Skotnicki about the saga (and it is a saga) of how FD-SOI got from his PhD thesis to volume manufacturing and global deployment. But there … Read More


Thomas Skotnicki: FD-SOI 26 Years in the Making

Thomas Skotnicki: FD-SOI 26 Years in the Making
by Paul McLellan on 07-23-2015 at 7:00 am

It seems to be FD-SOI week yet again. I talked to Thomas Skotnicki this morning. He is the father of thin-box FD-SOI and its birth is an interesting story. The story began 26 years ago (so not quite as far back as the photo!).

Thomas is of Polish origins (he is actually Tomeczek) and grew up in Warsaw where he earned his PhD. In 1983 in Canterbury,… Read More


Synopsys Buys Bluetooth IP

Synopsys Buys Bluetooth IP
by Paul McLellan on 07-22-2015 at 7:00 am

There is obviously a broad spectrum of semiconductor IP but broadly speaking it seems to fall into three buckets:

  • foundation IP: standard cells, memories
  • microprocessors and associated peripherals
  • interface IP

Foundation IP is where it all started. When I was at Compass Design Automation in the 1990s that was pretty much what… Read More


Starvision and SOS, a Perfect Match

Starvision and SOS, a Perfect Match
by Paul McLellan on 07-21-2015 at 7:00 am

SoC design these days is largely about assembling externally developed semiconductor IP with a small amount of differentiated content. Only companies who have to adopt new processes instantly develop a lot of their own IP. It makes more sense to license it. Partially because there is not a lot of differentiation in standards-based… Read More